Chapter 10 – Dynamics

TL;DR: This chapter provides an overview of some important dynamic theories in linguistics and artificial intelligence and shows the way in which these fit into the general perspective on communication.

Abstract: Publisher Summary This chapter provides an overview of some important dynamic theories in linguistics and artificial intelligence and shows the way in which these fit into the general perspective on communication. It contains some more general logical considerations on dynamic phenomena, discussing various ways to model their logic and the way the logic that emerges is related to its classical static predecessors. Natural language involves different dynamic mechanisms. Discourse representation theory and dynamic predicate logic highlight changing anaphoric bindings, whereas Veltman's Update semantics focuses on information flow and epistemic statements about its stages. The basic ideas of Heim's file change semantics (FCS) and Kamp's discourse representation theory (DRT) are very much the same. While in Heim's theory the readers or hearers of a text represent the information that they have obtained by means of a file, DRT lets them keep track of that information with the help of a discourse representation structure.